Rich country, poor people - by El-Rufai

This Day

19 August 2011

Rich country, poor people - by El-Rufai       

Written by Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai    

If President Goodluck Jonathan had had the courage to publicly declare his assets and that of his wife, the venerable Dame Patience Jonathan, it would have been possible to use Nigeria’s first family to undertake an assessment of the incidence of poverty in the country and explore why one of the richest countries in the world has some of the poorest people. While we await the president on this matter, one needs not travel too far to see

 evidence of poverty; just look around.

Though Nigeria’s population is three times that of South Africa, our economy is second to theirs in Africa. We are the 37th largest economy in the world, and 11th in terms of labour force (about 48 million, according to 2010 estimates). So how come we are one of the most impoverished countries in Africa and the 25th poorest in the world?